Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hayes
“Dance. With. Me.” Her demand raises goose bumps on my arms, but it’s her fingers tightening around my throat that does me in.
This woman could tell me to do anything, and I’d do it.
Set her ex’s house on fire? Done.
Buy a round of drinks for the entire bar? Here’s my wallet.
Step off a ship into the middle of the vast, dark ocean? Liv proves that sirens lured men into the seas.
I’d follow her anywhere.
She doesn’t wait for my response. She doesn’t need to. She knows men obey her.
Especially me.
Her figure grazes my body, and I’m already a live wire. My hands find her hips as she sways to the music, hypnotizing me with every move.
Her body begged to be touched, but I was afraid to go too far. Now, she’s pulling me in closer, holding my hands steady as she shimmies to the beat.
My palms skim the skin above her jeans, and my immediate reaction is to pull back.
Don’t scare her off. Don’t scare her off.
But her fingers thread mine, shackling my palms around her waist. She’s thin and toned, and I can feel her abdominal muscles flex as she sways. Her tiny little tank top flutters along her rib cage, barely grazing my forearms.
She’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen, and if she keeps backing towards me, she’ll know exactly how much I think so.
Don’t scare her off.
Don’t–
Her ass grinds against my front, and my whole body stills as hers does.
Electricity shoots down my spine, overpowering any rational thought to move away… But then she moves.
Into me.
Her hips rock, planting her ass firmly against my hard length. Other than that slight movement, we’re both statues on the dance floor as the entire bar buzzes around us.
Her fingers twitch in mine, and the mass behind my zipper responds without my permission, flexing against her tight backside.
“Olive,” I breathe her name, starting to apologize, but she glances over her shoulder, silencing me with a single look.
She starts dancing again, grinding her body against mine, torturing me with her curves.
Fuck it. If I’m going to hell for this, I want the deluxe deal.
My right hand flattens on her stomach, forcing her against me until there’s no space between us anywhere, while my left hand caresses every inch it can reach.
I feel the muscles in her leg working as she dances against me, and I drag my fingertips up the front of her thigh, carving a path towards her hip.
She pushes against me as I anchor her waist, pulling her in impossibly closer. Her fingernails climb the back of my neck, digging into my hair and scraping at my scalp.
Pure carnal frustration escapes my throat, and she gasps as I silence myself on the soft spot between her shoulder and neck.
No one has ever been able to elicit such impulses from me, but it’s Olive, and I’m hard enough that I’m hallucinating taking her right here in the middle of the dance floor.
She tugs my palm higher on her stomach and up her ribs until my thumb brushes the underside of her breast. Not over her tank top, but under the flowy fabric, my rough skin caresses her soft flesh.
I hold her sternum steady, plastering her shoulders to my chest. “Don’t fucking start something you don’t intend to finish, dove,” I murmur in her ear.
Her whole body shudders when I bite her earlobe, and she twists in my arms, always beating me at my own game. Because it’s her and she owns me.
“You don’t like how I dance?” Her lips flutter against my cheek, and it takes everything in me not to turn my head to claim them with my own.
My hands dance up her back instead, capturing every inch of her exposed skin between the two fucking strings holding her top together. “I love the way you dance,” I growl, feeling every inch of her body melded to mine.
She wraps her arms around my neck, and I breathe in her scent, losing sight of everything around me. This can’t be real life. I’ve dreamed of this for too long. I must’ve fallen and cracked my head open.
Or maybe I got in a car accident on the way here.
No, I rode my bike. I probably got taken out by a trucker.
The volume of the music dips as the strobe lights cut off, yanking me from my stupor.
“It’s closing time, open all the doors and let you out into the world.”
The song rips the idiocy from my brain as I blink at the woman in my arms.
“Closing time, turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl.”
I’m holding Liv, and I’m acting like a fucking animal.
It’s Olive. My Olive. And, I’m not taking this moment seriously enough. She deserves better than this.
“Jensen,” she whispers, holding my cheeks in her soft hands, forcing my attention to her mouth. It’s still loud enough in here that I need to read her lips as she speaks.
But her lips. I want to feel her lips.
“My friends are going to make me leave now.”
“What?” I blink. Take her?
“That’s girl code. Come together, leave together.” That means I need to let her go. “Unless…” She starts, and I don’t wait for her to finish, anchoring my arm around her waist and lifting. She squeals, but her legs wrap around my hips instinctively.
I’m moving across the room and through the crowd before someone comes for her. She’s mine, dammit.
“Jensen,” she breathes my name again as we crest the outside air and the cold bites her skin.
I set her on my bike, whipping my long-sleeve shirt off, and draping it over her head. She giggles as I help guide her arms through the sleeves.
My white sleeveless shirt exposes more of the tattoos she hasn’t seen, but none of the incriminating ones. It also exposes me to the elements enough to realize I can’t take her on my bike.
She’ll freeze, and I can’t put her through that.
Instead, I lean in, dragging my nose along her neck, memorizing her scent. If I wake up tomorrow, I need to know this was real.
Her arms wrap around my shoulders as she tips her head back, exposing her throat, and I take it… Letting my lips caress her skin.
“Jensen,” she breathes. My name on her fucking lips is a God damn miracle.
Her eyes are hooded, skating across my arms and across my chest, where her hands trail up towards my neck.
“Olive,” I warn her when her lust-filled gaze lands on my lips.
A sudden shrill whistle from behind me berates my eardrum. “Hey, buddy. Off our girl,” Natalie yells at me.
My head tilts to look over my shoulder, and Jackson just shrugs. “Sorry, Hayes.”
I feel Liv’s body shake as she giggles in front of me, and another wave of self-hatred hits me. She’s fucking drunk.
I’m acting like a fool, and I almost kissed her in the parking lot of some random bar. God dammit, I’m fucking all of this up.
“Are you warm enough?” I ask her, sighing. She shakes her head and giggles, again, opening her arms for a hug. Fucking, Olive.
A smile tilts my lips as I wrap my arms around her, lifting her off my bike. “Where to?”
“I came with Thea and Callie.”
“Hey, she’s ours!” Callie and Thea burst through the double doors of the bar, giggling the same tune as Liv.
I help her into Thea’s car, only after I confirm that Jesse is driving and not one of the tipsy women piling into the backseat.
“Nope, you’re coming with me,” Nathan states, dragging Callie back out of the car. A chorus of protests erupts, but she only laughs as he leads her to his truck.
I want that. I want Liv to be mine. I want there to be no question of who she is coming home with.
“Do you want your shirt back?” Liv leans out the window just as Jesse starts to pull away.
“No, dove. I don’t.”
“Good, I wasn’t going to give it back anyway. See you Monday,” she winks, and my whole fucking face grins. This woman.
They pull out of the lot, and I feel Malec’s skyscraper shadow next to me. “Yeah, I’ll be seeing you Monday, too. Hopefully, you two had a chance to discuss some things while you were fused to each other’s bodies.”
“Fuck off, Malec.”
He pats my shoulder. “Monday.”
How do I broach the subject with Liv that Malec wants me to spill all her dirty secrets? Especially now that I practically took advantage of her drunkenness and pretended that everything between us was fine and easy.
Nothing between Liv and me is easy. Not anymore. The comfort we used to share was shattered the day I nearly killed a man in front of her.
Now I’m supposed to ask her if she’s had contact with a man that I’d still want to kill if I saw him today.
And any other gritty details from her life that I’ve missed over the past decade… She’ll go back to slamming doors in my face.